I think that Duane is spot-on about our biggest risk coming from Little Brother (corporations - especially health insurers) vs. Big Brother.
I also love his idea of IOT "did I leave the oven/toaster/coffee pot on" devices. They would do a lot to ease my OCD-brain! :)

@Max the Magnificent: I will be there BUT hold the Bacon (unless it is Sir Francis! And he had an expert opinion on everything!).
That kidding aside, I believe the market potential of IoT's is being way oversold.
MP Divakar

It could even be like an advanced version of "Geranimals." Your clothes could talk with your calender and suggest outfits based on what's clean and what you'll be doing during the day.
I could envision my shoes saying to me: "Ah - no. Not white socks with me and those pants..."

Seriously, though, we need a better name. I first thought it was a clunky translation when I first encountered the term on one of my (German) employer's intranet pages. I was horrified to find it's the correct one..

I love the laundry idea! Imagine having an app that polled all your clothes and reported how many shirts, pants, socks, etc. you have in the "clean" and "dirty" categories, then told you how many laundry loads the dirty ones represent.

And here's my apolitical counterpoint to myself in favor of the IOT.
Far too frequently, usually when I'm running late, I'll run out the door to hop in my car only to find that the windows are frosted over and I should have left the house a few minutes earlier so I'd have time to scrape ice. In a similar scenario, again usually when I'm running late, I'm heading out of town only to realize that my car is nearly out of gas.
Some IOT goodies could talk to my smart phone, that I use as my alarm clock, and have it ring a few minutes early with an announcement that I'll need to scrape ice, get gas or something similar. That would be cool.
Here's another one that might help the person who hates doing laundry enough to put it off until the very last minute. If all of my pants and shirts had little IOT chips, they could transmit "clean" or "dirty." If I go to bed without anything transmitting "clean", I could be reminded to get back out of bed and finally do some laundry.
And of course, there's always the dreaded: "Did I leave the oven on?" when you're miles from home. I'd love an IOT device to either let me know I turned it off or turn it off for me.

Probably because social media have already made that "people" part of IoT happen. People can already get to their local representatives in close to real time, with their own (often inane) thoughts.
But of course, Max's main point is there's something called "the law of unintended consequences." Undeniably true. I don't think the average home today is anywhere close to being as "connected" as it could be, but by the same token, I ain't about to obsess over it.
These discussions are actually quite old. There was a French comedy movie from the 1950s, called "Mon Oncle" (my uncle), that addressed this very topic. This guy had his whole house wired up with sensors, so for instance, the fountain in the front yard would automatically turn on when visitors arrived.
Silly stuff like that. We've had the twechnology to do this for a very long time, even if not Internet-connected. It hasn't happened yet. I wouldn't stress.

Indeed the current administration is COUNTING on the people getting disgusted with private health insurers so they can force the single-payer "solution" down our throats. The government will NEVER do anything to prevent this, they stand to benefit by encouraging it!!